Sir — This refers to the article, “Compassion and care: Two faces of the same coin” (November 11) by Hiranmay Karlekar. Compassion pays. If we feel compassion for the ragpickers, we can better manage our environment and waste. Our ragpickers are rendering great service to the cause of India’s garbage disposal by taking the recyclable materials from the garbage van to the place where it is recycled. Without their service, those materials would have been burnt, resulting in air pollution and warming of the environment.
The need of the hour is to entrust local self Governments to register all adult ragpickers in their respective areas and engage them in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan for garbage recycling, compost creation and management. There is, however, no question of disturbing the exclusive job of the cleaning staff to dispose the non-recyclable garbage.